Heads of St Aetherius and a companion

The face of St Aetherius is described by fine brush drawings of the eye sockets and eyebrows and the outlines of the nose and the closed mouth. Shaded areas are characterized by parallel and cross-hatching. Dark areas of the loosely sketched hair are, however, marked by denser squiggly lines. The head of the companion next to him has, apart from a very similar internal drawing of the face, a crown-like headdress, which in the painted version was replaced by a headband with a double row of pearls. The changes made to the head of St Aetherius during the painting process involve a change from a closed to a slightly open mouth and the addition of a wreath of leaves on his head. In this sense, the headdress of St Aetherius resembles the in many ways simpler headdresses of the companions in the painted version.